Unsolved Crime Hangs Over Trust's Annual Meeting

The Oct. 17 annual meeting of the members of the Stockport NHS Foundation Trust should be particularly interesting because police have not solved the case of deliberate contamination of saline solution given to patients at its main hospital, named Stepping Hill.

Oct 10, 2011

Next week's annual meeting of the members of the Stockport NHS Foundation Trust should be particularly interesting because police still have not solved the case of deliberate contamination of saline solution administered to some patients at its main hospital, named Stepping Hill.

Greater Manchester Police investigators concluded three patients who died in July 2011 were given saline into which insulin had been injected, but they ruled out six other deaths as being connected. And prosecutors dropped all charges against Stepping Hill nurse Rebecca Leighton, 27, on Sept. 2. Police have said as many as 30 patients may have been affected by the contaminated saline.

The trust's chief executive, Dr. Chris Burke, and its chairman, Dr. Robina Shah, are scheduled to deliver welcoming remarks and present the trust's 2010/2011 annual report in the annual meeting, which will take place at Stepping Hill Hospital at 6 p.m. local time Oct. 17.

The trust has more than 4,000 employees, recorded an operating surplus during 2009/2010, and continued to reduce its rate of MRSA and other hospital-acquired infections during that year, Shah noted in last year's annual report, which covered the trust's fifth year since being designated an NHS Foundation Trust.